Bloodshed and Blossoms
by Calendar
Summary: Sesshoumaru is trying to concentrate on normal things, like killing, but Rin is missing. Takes place somewhere after he saved her from Naraku.


Title: Bloodshed and Blossoms 

Author: Calendar 

Rating: G 

Distribution: Anywhere, just ask. Definitely at my site. Check it out at http://www.angelfire.com/anime3/jenaque/index.html. I should have this up in a few days at the latest. 

Disclaimer: The clay wasn't mine. I just created my own sculpture. Author's Notes: Wrote this in three days. I was supposed to be working on some other stories, but I was struck by inspiration. *smile* I like it. Leave reviews, please. 

Thanks to: Crystal, my beta reader. 

~~~~~~ 

He was going to sit, and he was going to sit . . . Ah, there. Sit there and calculate the distance from his home. Stay there and think about relaxing things to do. Killing Naraku. Killing Inuyasha. He sat. It was . . . not relaxing. Obviously, that was a bad area to sit in. Ah, a cherry tree. He could sit under a cherry tree and be comfortable. It was fall though, and the blossoms had fallen long before. Well, that would still be relaxing. He sat again. Well, such a tree could be good for someone a great as he. 

No, it was terrible. This clearing was not for him. Perhaps one simpler, less important creatures could enjoy it. He eyed the sleeping toad on the other side of the clearing with disdain. Yes, that would make sense. Well, best to stay here. He should thinkg about killing. Safe things. Bloodshed. 

Damn it! Where was she? 

There was a routine when they traveled. All day, they would search for Naraku. The girl would babble happily to him, or Jaken, or even to his mount. Jaken would grumble under his breath about her cheerfulness, and he would ignore them both. That was relaxing. 

Precisely one hour until sundown, they would stop for the night. The child would forage for her meal, just as he'd taught her, and be back thirty minutes before the sun set. Then she would curl up beside him and fall asleep. 

It was fifteen minutes before sundown. 

Naturally, he, the great and powerful, was not worried at all. Taiyoukai do not worry. Worrying was for fools and weaklings. He was neither, and in fact, killed fools and weaklings whenever he happened upon one of them. If Jaken wasn't so useful. . . 

The girl child was _late_. 

Naraku wouldn't have taken her again. He was too clever, too full of ideas to reuse one again. 

For the week after he had collected her from the human boy, she had stuck close by him. He had been . . . amused by her caution, to some extent. It had saved him needless time, waiting for her to stop dawdling, as she would have done. It bothered him when he waited for her. It always seemed that something was off about the situation. Taiyoukai did not _wait_, not for mere humans. His father had . . . 

The child was trying his carefully built patience. 

She was in awe of him, of course. That was only natural. He was a demon lord, and he allowed her, a mortal, to follow him. Oddly though, she also adored him. He had assumed that such foolishness would cease, and she was rightly fear him. Fear was amusing. If she feared him, he would feel justified in leaving her with her own kind. Mortals. 

As it was, whenever he thought about doing so, an odd feeling went through him. It was much like the way he had felt when he had found her dead body all those months ago, and it was probably the way he felt while thinking of her now. 

Where was she? 

No one, ever, had caused these odd feelings before. It rather annoyed him. This mortal was still alive, in fact, alive because of him. He shifted uneasily. Maybe he should have moved seats. This one was becoming more uncomfortable by the minute. 

He allowed her to come with him, he cared for her, and this is how she repaid him? Vanishing off into the woods? It was typical of a mortal child to run from him. And there was that feeling again, that tightening in his stomach. Perhaps he was hungry. 

That child was making him angry. 

Where had his thoughts gone? First he was thinking about respectable things like death and maiming, then onto the girl. It was rather bothersome. He should go and kill something, just to get these ridiculous thoughts out of his system. Jaken was a convenient target, but then the child would have no one to watch over her when he was away. Oh well, if he happened to experience that feeling again, he'd just go kill something. Then everything would be satisfied. Except for the girl, who would still be missing. 

There was that feeling again. He should really do something about it. Maybe Naraku had taken her again. The first time, Naraku had assumed he would be worried or actually upset. Didn't the fool realize he, lord of the Western Lands, was above such humanlike feelings? Did he, the great one, appear so weak? One he found Naraku, the other demon would die. No one assumed he, great demon, had a weakness. Especially when the assumed weakness was a human child. 

The child still wasn't coming. 

Inuyasha would probably find this whole situation fucking hilarious. The hanyou probably believed his older brother had gone soft. How pitiful. Inuyasha would be proven wrong soon enough. Too bad the hanyou would be dead before his own defeat would sink in. 

The child was heading this way, and she smelled of . . . flowers. Ah. 

He turned to see her running through the brush to the clearing just as the sun was setting. She was wearing a necklace of small blossoms. 

"Sesshoumaru-sama! Rin brought Sesshoumaru-sama pretty flowers!" 

She giggled like the little girl she was, and pulled a garland of wilting flowers from behind her back. She climbed onto his lap and began winding it around his armor. 

He sat very still, letting her crawl all over him, her giggles causing the odd feeling in his stomach to rise into his chest. The flowers were obviously making him feel choked up. He was suitably outraged. 

He definitely need to hit someone. It was a good thing Jaken was always so convenient. 

~~~~~~ 

Owari 


End file.
